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In Glory (Col. 3: 4).
pp. 118 - 120
Do these words indicate:
(1)
A sphere of blessing, or
(2)
simply the goal of salvation?
How easy to pose the question, how satisfactory to sit back and wait for the failure
"to give a straight answer", yet how false and misleading this "or" that divides the
two propositions as though they neutralize one or the other. Much that appears as
legitimate argument is a fallacy. The particular fallacy involved in the predicament posed
in the opening dual question is really a mere trick, which consists in asking two or more
questions as if they were one; then the respondent is trapped whether the answer is in the
affirmative or the negative.
The standard illustration is asking a man "whether he has ceased beating his wife?"
Lawyers are often guilty of this sophism when they insist on a "categorical answer" "yes
or no". If this logical "trick" be intentional it is reprehensible but not very dangerous.
The dangerous sophism is when it is put forward with all honesty of purpose; it not only
deceives its author, but it is more likely to deceive those who listen, especially if they
hold the author of this fallacy in high esteem. Truth is not either pure black or pure
white. All truth must be related to something else before we can arrive at truth itself.
Glory is both a goal of salvation, and at the same time interpreted correctly only when its
associations are included. For example: the all-covering theme of I Cor. 15: is
"Resurrection", the sub-divisions are "how", "what" or "where". The all-covering
statement is that the dead, all the dead who fell asleep "in Christ", shall be "raised IN
GLORY" (I Cor. 15: 43). It is a fallacy however to conclude that this statement alone
settles where resurrection will be enjoyed, or whether resurrection may be enjoyed in
more than one sphere, while being all the time "in glory". The words that immediately
precede in I Cor. 15: 40, 41 make that clear:
"The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another . . . . . for
one star differeth from another IN GLORY."
Sphere or place or whatever better word we choose, cannot be eliminated from
I Cor. 15: 43. Glory is the accompaniment of the Second Coming of Christ in more than
one aspect. For example:
"The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father" (Matt. 16: 27).
"The Son . . . . . shall sit in the throne of His glory" (Matt. 19: 28).
"Coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matt. 24: 30).
Here the same word "glory" is used as is found in Col. 3:, yet no reader of The
Berean Expositor, we trust, would dream of confusing the spheres wherein these
appearings will take place. At the Transfiguration Moses and Elijah appeared "in glory"